Sidewalk chalk slams pro-choice, sparks debate
I was walking to the Idaho Commons, staring downward. All of a sudden, I encountered pastel sidewalk chalk telling me everyone has a right to life. It takes a second to realize this anonymous chalk is referencing pro-life beliefs, something I wholeheartedly disagree with.
People who are pro-life argue the fetus should be asked whether or not they want to live. This raises several problems.
First of all, a fetus doesn’t understand the concept of “living.” If they could be asked what they wanted, chances are they would want to stay in the womb, where it’s dark and they get fed automatically. They may not ask to be aborted, but then again, they don’t understand the concept of “dead” either.
Another thing that irks me about this argument is people want the child to be asked, stating if they could go back in time, they would choose life. Well, yeah. With most college students having 18 plus years of life under their belt, anyone would go back in time and choose life.
However, college students also understand the concept of hardship now that they are taking care of themselves. Would you really choose life if you knew your parents and the rest of your family would go through months, years, and decades of hardship to put you where you are now? I wouldn’t.
Additionally, what the parent says is valid. If they don’t think they could support a child properly and it would be better to get an abortion, they should be able to make that decision. We entrust a child to their parent for 18 years, at least. The parents make almost all of a child’s decisions from birth until they are married, and yet we judge them for making decisions prior to a baby being born. It doesn’t add up.
Furthermore, a sociological study in the ‘70s showed when abortions were legalized, 20 years later there would be a significant drop in crime rate. Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and John Donohue of Yale University conducted a study in 2001, which found similar results to the earlier study.
The suggestion from this is when abortions were legalized, people didn’t have to raise a child they didn’t want or couldn’t afford to support. Therefore, the child wasn’t neglected or abused, and both are traits that can lead to deviance and crime.
Levitt and Donohue found that states, specifically Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Washington, which had legalized abortions before the decision in Roe v. Wade, had the earliest and steepest reduction in crimes.
Recent legislation in Missouri states that women now have to go to the state’s only abortion clinic, leave for three days and then come back in order to have the procedure. The idea of this new law is to decrease the amount of abortions people have, because accessing the facilities is now that much harder for women.
Making a mother wait longer to have an abortion means when she actually does have the procedure, she’s just further along in her pregnancy and is in a different state. While the state’s abortion statistics might fall, it does not mean that there are less abortions taking place.
I believe abortion should be legal everywhere without serious restrictions, as is the case in Idaho and now Missouri. Just because something is legal, doesn’t mean everyone will choose to do it. Also, if abortions were easier to access, mothers wouldn’t have to go to a second-rate doctor and risk not only their lives but also their baby’s.
Walking by the chalk in front of the Commons doesn’t change my beliefs, despite how many people write their opinions.
Claire Whitley can be reached at [email protected]